THAT’S HOW THE DARK GETS IN: Divisive views and fake news pumped up engagement on Facebook during the election, but they created a potentially fatal rend in the company’s fabric.
JEFF CHIU/AP
IMAGINE GOING on Facebook and finding no political posts—just your friends and their updates. It would feel like pulling on clean underwear after wearing a single pair for a week on a desert hike.
Fake news? That’s only the start of the tempest about to roll through Facebook headquarters. The site is turning into a septic tank of polluted politics. It’s becoming a party you want to leave because everybody got drunk and obnoxious. No new social network is going to beat Facebook by copying Facebook, but we might get fed up with all the politics and fake crap on Facebook and turn to something refreshingly different. Right there you can see the leak in Facebook’s tire: the left glove that drops and leaves an opening for a rival to punch it in the face.